1. Introduction

On May 20th 2008, we proudly announced the latest academic and professional versions of our easy-to-use and powerful schematic capture and interactive simulation environment, and flexible board layout tools; NI Multisim 10.1 and NI Ultiboard 10.1.

With this latest release of Multisim 10.1 we have continued to combine the time-saving value and validation of SPICE simulation, with intuitive integration to real measurements, for educators to have an unparalleled platform for circuits teaching, and professional designers to effortlessly transition to final prototype.

2. Learn More about the New v10. 1 Features

Version 10.1 is the culmination of over 40,000 hours of development, resulting in intuitive, time-saving and productivity enhancing features.

For the professional engineer, we have taken customer input and looked to the trends in industry to continue addressing the needs for better productivity and streamlined integration to prototype validation.

For academia we have addressed the traditional hurdles in education and the difficulty in transitioning students to the laboratory, with unparalleled integration between theory and the physical lab with Multisim and the NI ELVIS II prototyping station.

In this latest release you will see new features such as:

Improved simulation of SPICE based languages with brand new SPICE parser technology

New power simulation models, and over 300 new components from leading manufacturers like Analog Devices and Texas Instruments to make design and component selection even easier

The release of Multisim 10.1 marks the beginning of the new benchmark for teaching circuits education, with the complete integration of Multisim with the NI ELVIS platform.

The Electronics Education Platform is comprised of the Multisim circuit simulation environment, industry standard LabVIEW measurement software and the brand-new, NI ELVIS II design and prototyping platform. These products are now completely integrated to form an unparalleled platform for circuit’s education. This means that the new NI ELVIS II measurement instruments can be opened indside the Multisim 10.1 environment. The same instrument can be used to analyze simulated and real measurements. This is unparalleled in circuits’ education platforms.

During our conversations with professors, educators and instructors it has become apparent that traditionally students struggle to transition from theory, to design and finally to the physical lab. The leap from each part of the design flow is difficult for a student to overcome.

The brand new integration between Multisim and NI ELVIS II overcomes the hurdle of transitioning students from theory to laboratory. The 3D NI ELVIS II view in Multisim allows students to practice prototyping in a virtual environment. Once the circuit is built, the BUILT-IN NI ELVIS II instruments in Multisim allow the student to simulate the design, measure the prototype and compare in the same instrument.

“NI ELVIS II, LabVIEW graphical system design software and the tight integration with Multisim 10.1 brings together cutting-edge hardware and software to create a hands-on platform for science and engineering labs,” said Ray Almgren, vice president of academic relations for National Instruments. “By incorporating valuable feedback from educators around the world, NI ELVIS II delivers on educators’ needs to illustrate theoretical concepts taught in the classroom while giving students an opportunity to explore and design those concepts in an interactive environment using LabVIEW and Multisim.”

This completely integrated hardware and software platform provides a hands-on method for students to gain in-depth knowledge of electronics design theory and practice.

A continued focus is for us to work with the leading authors and educators, to again help students overcome the hurdles in education. Our work ensures that the textbooks you use in your school have integration to Multisim, so that students can simulate these circuits in Multisim, and prototype on the NI ELVIS – a complete teaching flow from theory, to design, to prototype.

5. Circuit Design with NI Multisim 10.1 and NI Ultiboard 10.1

With the 10.1 release of Multisim and Ultiboard we continue to evolve our professional line-up of tools to address the needs of design engineers. With powerful design tools, and the enhanced simulation afforded by the integration of real measurements into design, professional engineers have the tools to be productive, and quickly transition a design to manufacturing faster, cheaper and on-schedule.

Our professional platform, comprised of Multisim, Ultiboard, and measurement technology including NI LabVIEW and NI LabVIEW SignalExpress, introduces a large number of new professional design tools to implement the best practices in design.

Engineers can now more effectively bring advanced design analysis further back in the design flow to the capture and simulation stage. By leveraging the easy-to-use Multisim environment, real measurements can improve the stimulus of the design, thereby providing more accurate simulation results, while custom measurement instruments can be built with LabVIEW, which live in Multisim to more accurately view and analyze simulated data.

Finally the integration to LabVIEW means that the entire design flow, from capture, to simulation, to layout and finally prototype validation are completely integrated. Common design flaws and errors can be removed from the design flow, to reduce design re-spins and manufacturing iterations.

Learn more about the Multisim, Ultiboard and LabVIEW professional platform with the following resources:

For this latest release of Ultiboard you will see continued improvement to the speed of design, as well as to the efficiency of part and trace placement. Some of the overall on-going quality improvements you will see include:

7. Microcontroller Simulation Now a Standard Feature

The former Multisim MCU Module, has now been made a standard feature in NI Multisim Education, NI Multisim Student Edition, NI Multisim Full, and NI Multisim Power Pro. Users now get the advanced simulation of the PIC1684(a) and 8051/8052 feature for no additional cost!

8. Now Available!

NI Multisim 10.1, NI Ultiboard 10.1 and NI ELVIS II are now available! The extensive enhancements and new features have been developed with an emphasis on intuitive and easy-to-use tools. On May 20th 2008, you can order your copy of Multisim, localized in English, German and Japanese.